Island of the crappy living dead Bruno Mattei zombie movies

I watched Bruno Mattei's ISLAND OF THE LIVING DEAD (aka L'isola dei morti viventi) tonight. The film is from 2006 and along with its sequel ZOMBIES THE BEGINNING (made a year later) this is Mattei's goodbye to the world of crappy Italo horror movies (not that all Italo horror movies are crappy, mostly just Bruno Mattei's, haha). Both films were shot in the Philippines (and if you're someone who's into Filipino trash films it'll interest you to know that Mike Monty worked on the film. He has since then passed away and there's a dedication to him at the end).

A group of people discover a deserted island by chance, there's a bunch of big old ruins, catacombs, a graveyard, and, obviously... zombies! The worst zombies in Italian horror movies I might ad. The zombies in ISLAND make the ones in Claudio Fragasso's AFTER DEATH look like DAWN OF THE DEAD or ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS!! They're crappy, crappy, crappy. Hahaha. They walk like the actors have been told to look funny-drunk in a kids movie. They flab their arms. They growl (!!!). They fall asleep (dead people need their beauty sleep too, don't you know! LOL). I swear some of them wear masks that Bruno Mattei most likely bought in a Filipino toy store!!

When I watched Mattei's two farewell cannibal movies (which he made just prior to these two zombie movies) I thought the actors looked like they were on level with porn actors. The "actors" (and I use the term loosely) in ISLAND are WORSE!!! The two chicks... well, they look awesome but I wish they had been in porn movies INSTEAD cos they can't bloody act. And bare in mind I'm used to the (low) level that so many actors in Italian movies have reached thru out the years so it's not like I'm not used to crappy acting. These actors reach new heights (well, lows!!!). Haha. The gore and special effects are pretty decent. The film is shot in English but if you think that means lesser thick accents you're in for a surprise. Oh man, I so wish they HAD dubbed this film! Most of the cast can hardly speak English.

Now, if this were a site for good films and good film-making by a serious film critic then, needless to say, all of the above would have resulted in a writing off of the film. Well, not so with this reviewer. Sure the film is an abomination if I ever saw one but I was pretty entertained. Okay, I know, I know, I'm easily entertained but still. A new Italian zombie/splatter/horror movie, how could you not be entertained? I certainly was!

On the DVD there is a trailer for one of the "classic" Italian zombie movies; ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS (Zombi 2) which makes the difference between the two films very obvious! ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS is a masterpiece that uses all its elements in a skillful way; the horror, gore, music, atmosphere, etc. ISLAND OF THE LIVING DEAD is a fun & entertaining piece of crap.

Oh, and talking of which; the "12 inch splinter in the eye" scene from ZOMBIE FLESH is actually copied in ISLAND. Is it a homage to Fulci? Well, knowing Mattei it's probably just a matter of theft, LOL. He most likely thought "This'll look great and no one remembers that old film anyway!", hahaha.

Watch ISLAND OF THE LIVING DEAD by all means but if you're new to Italian zombie movies please don't base your opinion on Italo zombie flicks on this one. Go get ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS (and Zombi Holocaust) first.

ID this man-with-deadly-iron-hand movie

I remember something Damon Foster once said in an issue of Oriental Cinema: 'I'm so old dust comes up when I cough'. That's how I feel too. Well, at least now that I'm going to explain all this about some mysterious film I watched in my childhood:

In 1971 I was in my first grade (yes, nineteen seventy fucking one!!). My mum thought it would be a grand idea to sign me up for the film club at my school (thanks mum!) and a couple of the films had a lasting impact on me. One was about some cool supermen and the other... I'll get back to that one.

Of course being 7 yrs old I didn't bite into film titles or which country they came from so it took quite a while to find out about any of the films. A couple of yrs ago a friend of mine got hold of a video tape and his description over the phone sorta rang a bell: a flick with three cool supermen: and yes, there it was: THE THREE FANTASTIC SUPERMEN (I Fantastici tre supermen, Italy, 1967)!!! It was a bit of a let-down though. I had enjoyed it tremendously as a seven year old but in adult life it just seemed too silly.

However, the other film is still a big mystery to me. I remember it as being a kind of a crime movie. There was this evil dude who had an electric iron hand and when he wanted to hurt someone he'd just grab their face and just burn their puss to a crisp. The images of their burnt faces was pretty scary. At the end of the film the hero fought the evil dude and knocked him over so his hand touched a train track (I think) and electrocuted himself. Phew! Scary stuff when you're a first-grader

Anyway, obviously I'm still anxious as to find out which film this is. Does any of you know? Does it ring a bell? Since I was so young I didn't notice finer details such as which language they spoke. I think it would've been a western flick but I guess it could've been Asian. Any help is appreciated.
[originally written as a post over at Dvdmaniacs]

crappy zombies. killer fish. ordering chinese. BADA BING!!!

Ahh, not too shabby a weekend film wise! :-) On Friday I received a parcel from a very nice store in China and ALSO a parcel from some friendly folks in the Czech Republic! How did we ever survive without online shopping!?



I FINALLY got the two new Bruno Mattei zombie films that he made just before he passed away; ISLAND OF THE LIVING DEAD and ZOMBIES: THE BEGINNING (in accordance with all good Mattei logic BEGINNING is of course the sequel to ISLAND! LOL X 10). I also bought Joe D'Amato's killer-fish movie DEEP BLOOD (which doesn't exist on dvd anywhere else). I'm told they also have a rare Italian killer-bear film on DVD in the Czech Republic but the title escapes me now and it's only got French dubbing anyway.



And finally... da da daahhh... I ordered, paid for, waited for, and have now received the amazing... the deadly... the complete... box release of every motherfucken episode of "The Sopranos"!!! Bada bing, bada bum!! Capisce, paesano?



I ordered the box from a SPIFFY store in downtown China. They have quite a good selection of complete box sets (all original releases of course) at prices where you think "Hmm, should I buy a kebab and a lemonade or should I order a complete box set from China", LOL.

Intro to trashy Vietnam War

All right, there's a proper intro now: Filo War.

When the Vietnam War raged... in the Philippines

One genre that is totally neglected by almost ALL genre film collectors is trashy Vietnam War movies from the Philippines...

...let me just repeat that: Trashy Vietnam War movies from the Philippines!! No mistake there! I'm talking about war movies... that take place during the Vietnam conflict... and are shot in the Philippines! And you don't need to mentioned it; I'm fully aware The Philippines never took part in the Vietnam War, haha.

The thing is, much like Indonesia and Hong Kong the Philippines had a thriving film industry during the 80s. Heaps of films were being made and, well, I don't really have anything to back this up but my gut feeling is that while the other prolific film territories in Asia did try and make money on export to foreign markets The Philippines did it much more gung ho. Most of these films were filmed or dubbed in English. In Hong Kong they didn't even bother to make proper subtitles. And maybe one of the reasons why the Philippines churned out so many Vietnam War movies was the international appeal; Firstly (I'm guessing here) they thought the American market would be interested in these movies because of the US involvement in the war, and secondly they would have appeal to a Western audience because the main characters would have to be Americans - or at least white actors playing Americans (or semi-white actors who sometimes had dreadful accents and/or spoke totally broken English, haha).

Anyway, I'm not going to talk too much about all this here now. The reason I'm mentioning this at all is because, da-da-daaaa, I have a new site! Yep, a site completely and only devoted to these trashy Filipino war flicks! It's totally... obskuriøst! Haha. To the best of my knowledge I think it's safe to say there are no other sites of that kind anywhere in Cyberspace. As I said to begin with this is a completely overlooked genre... and if you were to say "and for a reason" I wouldn't disagree with you! Most genre film fans don't like war movies cos they're boring (I find ordinary war movies boring!) but do yourself a favour and check out my site anyway. The thing with Filipino war flicks is they AREN'T boring at all because they're so full of trashy action it's unbelievable. As Fred Adelman mentioned over at Dvdmaniacs in a response to one of my posts; 95% of these movies are entertaining!! I couldn't agree more. How many genres can take credit for the same!

The site is still in its infantry, ehh, infancy so there's only a handful of reviews but there's quite a few scans and stuff and there'll be more soon. Check it out.

Finally, do check out this great trailer for the VERY cool Teddy Page directed movie PHANTOM SOLDIERS (which is almost a Filipino HORROR war movie!!)

"For Your Height Only 2"

aka THE IMPOSSIBLE KID
Very cool trailer! And yes; it's custom made, LOL.

RAMBU vhs covers galore

I found an alternative Swedish RAMBU vhs cover scan to the one I've already shown from Sweden.
Swedish vhs/English dub/fullscreen.
Thanks to Miltos from Cinehound in Greece. Incidentally, someone at Cinehound mentioned he'd seen a THE SNAKE QUEEN release also in this yellow series from Sweden! That's very interesting as so far the only release that was believed to exist is the Greek tape.
[Click scan for bigger size]

More Mexican horror movie lobby card madness

Hey it's been a while. A busy Christmas and stuff ya know. Anyhoo, here's a couple of veeery cool Mexican lobbycards for old Mexican horror movies I bought last night (the cards that is, I already had the films, obviously, LOL):

MAN AND THE MONSTER (available on subtitled dvd from CasaNegra)


RIDERS OF THE SKULLS aka EL CHARRO DE LAS CALAVERAS (only out on non-subbed bootleg dvd)


THE VAMPIRE (on subtitled dvd from both CasaNegra and Mondo Macabro)

RAMBU SPEAKS!!!

Hey you saw my post from a couple days back, yeah? Well, things may just look a teeny weeny bit better right now so with crossed fingers let's hope for the best.

Anyway, one thing I don't wanna miss out on is letting you all know... WE HEARD FROM PETER O'BRIAN!!! Yes, it's true!!! Ian received a letter from Peter O'Brian about a fortnight ago and here is the bit that concerns Peter's career and how he got started.


Please notice this is NOT the interview we've been talking about, this is "just" a letter. We would still very much like to make an interview with O'Brian but we just need to get things organised so that we are all able to be there at the same time! I'll let you all know.

Anyway, enough from me. I proudly present to you, finally, a word from an actor who has been "lost" for so many years. A mystical figure almost. And although I have fantasised and hoped for the day when someone would be able to get in touch with him and get the lowdown on his career, or even just find out who the heck he was, I've never really believed that it would happen.

Well, it did and although all due credit must go duefully to Ian I'm happy to be a wee part of all this. So, from Ian and me, here's your Christmas present:



PETER O'BRIAN's letter to Ian F:
[reprinted with permission]
I've been out here in the wilderness(Indonesia) for twenty years man. When I first came here on a teaching English throughout Asia mission, I had a ticket to travel the world and Indonesia was my second port of call. I was scheduled to stay five days in Jakarta, but after two days here I couldn't stand it, and took a walk down to UTA ( the French Airline I had my ticket with) when I was spotted walking the streets by film scouts. At the time they were looking for a Rambo look a like and there I was. They actually thought I was Sly, poor bastards. Anyway, the next thing you know, I'm down at Ram Punjabi's film studio ( Parkit Film) doing a fight scene with this Chinese fighter.

They stopped the fight scene after several minutes, and asked me into Ram's office to sign a contract as a leading man. I never did use that world trip ticket, in fact it ended up in the bin as I forgot about it and it just expired. That is destiny Ian.

Getting back to my story, so there you go Ian, from an English teacher to a Film star at the toss of a coin. Well, I wasn't going to let anybody step on my dreams; consequently, I signed the contract but not before scamming a role for my best friend as the Gangster boss, Craig Gavin ( real name Craig Smith). At first Ram, Gobin and Damu( the Punjabi Brothers) said, 'no we do not need a gangster boss especially one who looks like a gangster', and I said well, "either you take the two of us or forget it". They told me that they'd think about and let me know the next day.

We were best buddies on a world trip at that time, so we really didn't give a rat's arse about films or anything else for that matter. The next thing, I get the call saying, " OK, we'll keep him here as your manager and who knows, maybe we might find a role for him". On balance, the good old business, Indian minded producers put him to good use as a gangster boss where he shone.

We did two films together with the Punjabi Bros, and then Craig decided to stay back in New Zealand where we come from, not The USA as is wrongly stated here and there.

After getting a taste of Indonesia and its rich culture, gorgeous women, and exotic places, I decided to stay on and do another film with The Bros. I ended up playing the bad guy in my next film, called 'Forceful Impact', which stared an American Italian guy. It was fun raping and killing and not going to jail, so all in all it was a grand experience. Besides that, I'm not naturally an evil, or should I say bad guy; consequently, it was a real challenge to take on this role as a mafia boss.

After acting in seven movies I got married to the girl of my dreams.

We lived very humble lives there for three years before coming back to Indonesia. A year after being back, I ran into Gope Samtani, who is the main Producer from Rapi films. In our discussions, he asked me to make a come back in a film called "Time Game", which is basically a copy of Die hard one, but done in an apartment building through a terrorist genre. I was the hero, and did all my own stunts which is what I always do, and always enjoy doing.

Since a young boy, I've always loved danger and constantly found myself in hospital wards with broken arms, a back injury and some pretty serious cuts. Still, my principal is, you only live once, and after all, dying is easy; it's living that is hard. I've always believed that God will give me a good day to die, and when he's fit and ready to do so. I don't like living in fear and be robbed of some exhilarating moments.

By the way, that is not my voice in any of those films. They were all dubbed unfortunately.



PS: You can also read the above letter on Ian's blog "HK And Cult Film News" right here.

It's Christmas. Ho-hum.

Dear reader; I may not update this blog over the holidays so let me just wish you all a merry Christmas. I hope you'll have a nice time. Personally, it's already thee worst Christmas I've had ever!!! No fucking kidding.
Btw, I noticed I had twice as many Swedish readers yesterday as Danish readers, so thanks to everyone hinsidan. Incidentally, Sweden is also partly to blame for the downfall of this Christmas (in this household anyway!). Don't worry, I won't blame everyone with a Swedish flag. Well, maybe.